5 Strategies To Zero In On The Right Candidate For A Start-Up

Start-ups sometimes struggle to pick the right candidate. In their quest to find the most talented person, many start-ups end up appointing the most talented job-seeker instead. The smart way to start the search is to look within your own business network and then evaluate them using the following strategies.

1. Judge the candidate beyond the resume

It is true that the resume provides the first look of the candidate's academic and professional achievements. But going through the resume again and again will not suffice to gauge their suitability for the job. You can verify whatever has been written on the CV, but you should also judge the candidate from the confidence that he/she has attained with experience in the field. Assess how well they fit the profile you need.

2. Ask open-ended questions

Try to make the interview one-sided, where one person is doing the major talking. Just be sure that the one person is not you but the candidate. Ask questions that require fuller responses. This will help you to learn more about the candidate. Bring in questions related to his/her

3. Assess their career commitment

Knowing about the candidate's commitment to his/her career helps you to take the right decision. If you think that the candidate has switched jobs frequently then do not hesitate to ask why they did so. A capacity for loyalty to the company matters, after all.

4. Check compatibility

Managing employees sometimes becomes a difficult task because of the compatibility issues amongst them. You need to gauge whether the person in question has the necessary social skills to get along with managers and other staff in your organization. It helps to learn about how he or she is managing current business clients in order to help judge such skills.

5. Analyze their social media presence

Asking personal questions of a candidate with whom you are interacting for the first time can make the situation awkward and uncomfortable for both the parties. Yet, there's no getting away from the fact that you need to know the particulars of their background before you send the offer letter. A good way to gather the needed personal information of the candidate without making the face-to-face interaction awkward is to analyze (or get the HR team to do the needful) the applicant's presence on social media and make the right decision.